


Before I Sputter Out

by AerithQOC



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Drugs, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 02:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/657260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AerithQOC/pseuds/AerithQOC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a moment of weakness.</p>
<p>A moment of simple and uncompromising weakness.</p>
<p>And now Sherlock is about to lose everything he has.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before I Sputter Out

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Johnlock Grab Bag Challenge on tumblr. This was written for the prompt by youmademylifeahappyone which was; "What in the hell is that Sherlock?"
> 
> I really had far too many ideas for this one and wrote out a few different ideas... but somehow I ended up finishing the one that had the most angst in it. So apologies for the angst but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!
> 
> Title taken from the song "Novocaine for the Soul" by Eels.

It was a moment of weakness.  
  
A moment of simple and uncompromising weakness.  
  
There had been no new cases in nearly ten days. Lestrade was unable to supply even cold cases to him with his superiors breathing down his neck. No help from Molly in the morgue these days so new experiments were out of the question and John was so busy at the clinic more often these days (no hope to get new samples from John’s side either).  
  
Everything grounded to a halt except for Sherlock’s mind; it was forever ticking far too fast like a stopwatch or a bomb.  
  
Deducing the many passersby in London could only sustain his interest for so long and very few were interested in his deductions, even fewer were happy to hear what they were.  
  
He even speculated asking Mycroft for help and had reached for his phone on more than one occasion for that very reason but he still couldn’t bring himself to press the call button.  
  
The phone was instead flung into a tauntingly silent heap on the sofa as Sherlock hissed and clutched his head through a mass of unruly, dark curls.  
  
His mind was tearing itself apart.  
  
That was how he ended up in front of a familiar face, exchanging cash for little plastic bags and darting away from the empty street before a CCTV camera caught his lapse in judgement.  
  
And so, Sherlock stood in his flat, alone and in only his pyjamas staring at the bag on the table before him and biting the back of his thumb.  
  
Cocaine.  
  
He had promised John no more.  
  
He promised him that when John moved him, he promised again when they had finally fallen into each other’s arms the way that all soul mates eventually do and he promised this a number of times after that.  
  
It was the last time though - after Sherlock’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and there was sweat and spit and bile and John’s frantic hands that pushed and pulled and Doctor Watson’s voice shouting and _begging_ – Yes. Yes, it was that last time that turned Sherlock’s paper promises into something concrete.  
  
Which was why the cocaine was on the table and not already ploughing through his bloodstream.  
  
John was the reason. His mind was racing a mile a millisecond but John’s face was still there at every turn.  
  
John would hate him for this.  
  
(Even though John could never understand just why he needed this.)  
   
John would be furious for this.  
  
(Which he shouldn’t be, he should be here soothing those destructive thoughts rather than visiting a sister who is 14 hours away from another relapse that nobody could stop but herself, which was highly unlikely).  
  
John would never forgive him.  
  
Though the gleam in the bag beckoned him so sweetly.  
  
And how wonderful it would be. How very, very wonderful.  
  
But how could he? But how could he not? Why shouldn't he? Why should he?  
  
Sherlock’s head pulsated again with a need for the silence and the blissful ignorance that was so elusive to his chaotic mind and he clenched his hands together and thought about those few glorious moments of relief... and John would never know. He could go somewhere else and do it, state that there was finally a case and that he was investigating, and John would never know.  
  
But Sherlock would know and would never forget it and he found his breath hitching at the thought of lying to John, breaking his partner’s trust over just a few brief moments of sanity.  
  
Lost in thought, he had no idea that John had already come home until he heard the door to their flat swing open and Sherlock froze, a deer in the headlights, a feeling that he very rarely experienced before but this was an exceptional circumstance.  
  
It took only a few moments for John to spot the elephant in the room but when he did, and a hideous expression appeared on his face as if he had been struck, Sherlock’s heartbeat became near deafening.  
  
John’s wet jacket was still on (subject to rainfall for approximately 42 minutes total since John left Baker Street five and a half hours ago) and his keys were still gripped in his cold hand (-3°C outside judging from the pink tone of John’s fingers) but John’s eyes were too clearly fastened onto the bag to rid himself of these things.  
  
“What in the hell... is _that_ , Sherlock?” Each word was punctuated with a heaviness that almost made him wince. Almost.  
  
And he was giving Sherlock that look, the look where his eyes shone with a dull light that wouldn’t look out of place on a visitor to the morgue.  
  
“I should think that was obvious.” He knew that was the wrong thing to say long before he spoke but he couldn’t help the words falling from his lips, much less the obvious derogatory tone that they were seeped in. Sherlock’s grip tightened on the edges of his robe though his blank look remained steadfast.  
  
John’s face twisted into something sharp and enraged.  
  
“You promised me.” John hissed and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath through his nose. He opened them again and that ominous light wasn’t there anymore, there was only fury in those eyes. His next words were sterner, stronger. “You promised me no more of this... this _crap_! Drugs? Again? Are you bloody kidding me!”  
  
“You don’t understand-”  
  
“You’re damn right I don’t understand, Sherlock! I have _never_ understood your need for this crap, I don’t understand how someone as damn well brilliant as you could be so _stupid_ as to even begin doing something like this.”  
  
Sherlock scoffed and rolled his eyes. “John. You just don’t get it, my mind-”  
  
“Is a complex environment. Is a runaway train. Is a rocket stuck on a launchpad – Yeah yeah, I’ve heard it all before Sherlock. Just like you’ve heard it all before.”  
  
“Yes I have.” Sherlock inhaled deeply. He took a seat on his chair and stretched his hands over the arms of the chair, making his body an imposing presence despite how laughable that image seemed when he was only in worn pyjamas and an old navy robe. But Sherlock knew how to pull it off. “I know you’re going to say it anyway... Well? I’m waiting.”  
 __  
You’re killing yourself.  
  
Do you know what it’s like to come home to you see you so strung out?  
  
Do you know how I felt seeing the man I love nearly die the last time he was this foolish?  
  
If you loved me, you’d stop.  
  
You’re breaking my heart.  
  
Stop this just stop this.  
  
Sherlock was waiting for those words and all variations thereof to be lectured to him and he patiently waited for his partner to begin.  
  
John was quiet but his resolve threatened to break; Sherlock could see it in every twitch of muscle and clenching of his fists like a series of warning lights on a computer panel. Flashing, unstable, danger.  
  
Then John’s hands released and his body relaxed. Those tiny, red and amber warning lights that Sherlock could see were flashing brighter and louder than ever before.  
  
 _dangerdangerdanger_  
  
“John?” He asked, uncertain, and John just raised his head with another deep breath.  
  
Tired. He looked so tired. Tired of having the same argument. Tired of failing, tired of never getting through to the man he loved, tired of it all.  
  
“I’m not going to give you the speech. You know it off by heart by now, we’ve been over this too many times and... and that’s it.”  
  
“That’s it?”  
  
“Yes. I’m not going to bother you with it anymore. You win.” John finished with a shake of his arms out. Surrender.  
  
With that, John turned heel and took sharp strides towards their room – the room Sherlock once called solely his own until their union almost a year and a half ago now.  
  
Suspicion was rife in Sherlock’s mind and too many options filtered through – John was not saying anything else? Highly unlikely he would leave it at that – the look in his eyes said that though – perhaps he really doesn’t care about the drugs anymore? – Laughable theory in every regard but he was really going to drop it? Seemingly so.  
  
It made no sense and after only a few short moments (probably longer, Sherlock was lost in thought), John emerged with a half-filled overnight bag in his hands and that made Sherlock shoot up and out of his chair like a man possessed.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m packing a bag. Gonna staying at Mike’s or Bill’s tonight, maybe for a few nights. I dunno, as long as it takes.”  
  
“As long as it takes for what?” Sherlock asked apprehensively and he only dared to take a single step forward, afraid of approaching, afraid of answers that his mind had already provided every variation of.  
  
John’s head raised and beyond his rigid expression, there was that terrible light in his eyes again - that damnable, dull, _defeated_ light.  
  
“I love you so much Sherlock but I won’t stay and watch you kill yourself Sherlock. So... I won’t. Stay, I mean.” John shrugged and set his bag on the sofa.  
  
“You’re leaving.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“You’re leaving me.” Sherlock stated, the words so bitter on his tongue. Wrong and stagnant and... what? This couldn’t be right at all.  
  
John’s nose twitched but he said nothing, just turned tail and with almost military precision, marched up the stairs to his old bedroom where he kept the rest of his clothes.  
  
Sherlock finally found his feet and moved towards the sofa and he looked at John’s bag, hand reaching in and finding John’s favourite pair of jeans and some boxers and socks beneath his fingertips and a huge force smacked him in the chest.  
  
John was leaving.  
  
John was _leaving_.  
  
John couldn’t _leave_.  
  
With a speed he only ever possessed when chasing the criminals of London through dark backstreets, Sherlock lunged for the stairs and took them two- no three at a time until he reached the half open bedroom door and a startled John and he flung his arms around John, dropping to his knees where they crashed onto the wood panels with a terribly loud thud.  
  
“Sherlock!” John cried out in alarm, hands squeezing Sherlock’s shoulders and trying to look into his face but Sherlock refused, shaking his head against John’s stomach.  
  
“You can’t leave.”  
  
He could feel the hands loosen on his shoulders, Sherlock really didn’t like that at all and so he tightened his grip around John’s body in response.  
  
“You can’t leave me. I won’t take the cocaine John, I swear.”  
  
Sherlock could feel John’s muscles under his cheek swell and deflate when John sighed and Sherlock shook his head.  
  
“I know... I know we’ve been over this before. But I haven’t taken the drugs yet and I won’t – I _won’t_ take them. It was foolish and idiotic of me and I should never have been bought them and I’m... I’m sorry, John.”  
  
It was a lot to get those words out. The tensing of John’s body was testimony to how much the words meant. Sherlock _never_ apologised. At least, never sincerely.  
  
“I can’t watch you kill yourself, Sherlock. I can’t. And that last time - seeing you just lying there on the floor that last time, it nearly killed me too. You weren’t just out of it, you were damn near gone. And if I hadn’t been there...”  
  
“I would probably not be here now. I know that.” Sherlock paused and closed his eyes. “And I’ll never forget that. I love you John, so much. I can’t lose you.”  
  
A hand reached up and gently threaded into his dark curls, pulling him close and Sherlock choked on his breath at how good it felt to be cradled like that.  
  
“You’ll let me get rid of those drugs downstairs?”  
  
A nod.  
  
“And you won’t go out and get any more?”  
  
“No. I won’t.” The sound was muffled against John’s jumper. “Just don’t leave... please.”  
  
“I won’t leave.” The hand stroking his hair reached around and pulled him back so that John could see into his face. Sherlock knew what he would see, that undisguised, unapologetic and pathetic mess that was his current emotional state.  
  
Though John only gazed at him patiently, lovingly and it made him so relieved, he almost trembled.  
  
“I know how much it kills you when you can’t use that big brain of yours. I know how hard it must be, well I can guess anyway. But drugs aren’t a solution.”  
  
“Right.” Sherlock’s gaze moved away from John and his eyes covered every inch of the room, seeing the light film of dust that covered the desk and wardrobe and the streaks that broke it, which showed where John’s hands had moved across it from time to time and grabbed clothes and that picture of his family which was now downstairs, placed at a 48 degree angle to the bed and-  
  
“I’m sorry, Sherlock.”  
  
“I’m...” Sherlock began but he went no further as John’s lips brushed against his and his mind went blissfully silent for a single second; devoid of all but _John. John’s here. John’s not leaving. John won’t leave._  
  
“We’ll work through this together Sherlock. I swear.” __  
  
Sherlock’s mind was still racing, buzzing and needing – but when John kissed him and whispered those wonderful words in his ear – yes, yes that was fine.  
  
Wonderful, really.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I really hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
